When talking about PS4 Pro, I find it weird most of the time people dont factor in Sonys 20 million PS4s fiscal year target as part of the analysis and positioning of where Sony estimated the Pro to sell and where their position is.
Lets run by the facts that we know:
Last fiscal year, Sony shipped 17.7 million PS4s.
This fiscal year, Sony aims to ship 20 million PS4s (inc.Pro)
Despite outperforming their first quarter shipment YoY, Sony did not raise their 20mil estimate.
In other words, Sony was looking to either maintain, or have a small growth in total PS4 Slim sales.
If we estimate that Sony was aiming for growth of Slim and Pro to contribute the balance of sales...
That means theyre looking at:
PS4 Slim: ~18 million
PS4 Pro: ~ 2 million
You can +/- 500k, give or take depending on whether you view 18 mil is too high too low, but in general its definitely within that ballpark.
For a product that is planned to be sold in the market for 5 months (Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar) to only have a sales target of around 2 million means one thing.
Sony was not expecting PS4 Pro to be a big seller.
The product, at least for this fiscal year, is positioned to be supplementary, with the idea that it can deliver an additive boost in sales not unlike stuff like XL, etc. The jump in power is giving people the illusion that this was a special product, but honestly, if you just look at everything weve seen regarding the Pro in hindsight... it is everything Sony has claimed it to be. Those who tried to look beyond that are just dreaming.
The lack of any Pro product bundle, or positioning to take advantage of holiday sales.
The fact that marketing was notably muted, as seen by the lower ad spend by Sony.
The fact that PS4 Pro is undershipped in Asian regions, with healthy stock supply only in Mar/Apr.
With that being said, I would not yet say PS4 Pro is doing well.
I would say that as of Nov/Dec, theyre probably within expectations, but Nov/Dec is a nebulous two months of extremely high sales driven by pricing and deals; not to mention Nov is the launch month for Pro, that the ratio % of Pro:Slim might be misleading of how sales will trend once were out of the launch month into the slower Q1-Q3 periods.
If you were to ask me what would constitute as a success for Pro, given Sonys 20mil context, it would be for Pro: Slim ratio to be around 25-30 : 75-70 for January, February and March, while PS4 Slim sales has shown minimal drop from previous years YoY sales, enough for Pro to make up for the loss in sales by being additive to the total.
If it fails to deliver that 25-30% ratio, then I would consider Pro to be disappointing.